This section provides background information related to the present disclosure which is not necessarily prior art.
Often, when a vehicle is brought into a dealer for a rattle or noise coming from a catalytic converter, a dealership technician will remove the catalytic converter and send it to the supplier for examination without determining whether the catalytic converter is actually malfunctioning or whether a catalyst substrate within the catalytic converter is damaged. Currently, there is no tool that assists the dealership technician in diagnosing the rattle or noise. The dealership technician simply warranties the parts and replaces the entire exhaust system and catalytic converter. Replacing the entire exhaust system and catalytic converter can be very expensive and lead to unnecessary increased warranty costs for the parent company. Thus, there is a need for an integrated device associated with the catalytic converter which can verify whether the catalyst substrate is compromised or cracked.
Additionally, during the design phase of the catalytic converter, the design engineer or test technician wraps pressure paper around the catalyst substrate and makes a guess at a pressure at which to test the catalyst substrate. When the part is removed from the pressure paper, the color of the paper tells only the maximum pressure applied to the catalyst substrate. The maximum pressure, or color of the paper, is determined based on visual inspection by the design engineer or test technician and is therefore subjective and could change from person to person. Further, the entire process of wrapping the catalyst substrate, applying the pressure, unwrapping the catalyst substrate, and visually inspecting the paper is time consuming. Thus, there is a need for a device that can accurately indicate the stress on a catalyst substrate in real time to quicken the matting strategy process and reduce the cost of materials.